My Year Of Living Vintagely

Pretty much exactly one year ago, at a rather jolly, drunken dinner party, I rather rashly agreed to a cooking related wager with my neighbour – a head chef at an exclusive London club ;-? – on who could make the most tasty 'Bubble and Squeak'.  We discovered that each of us around the table had very different ideas regarding what a traditional Bubble and Squeak should consist of, and the argument, we decided, could only be resolved through a 'Bubble Off' competition.  Here is the original story of the evening, and my recipe for leftovers-based Bubble & Squeak.

It has been a year in the making, but on the anniversary of the rather drunken evening when the bet was made, we met up again to settle this simmering, hotly contested cooking challenge.

I suggested that I'd host the evening – hoping for a bit of a 'home game' advantage and being in reach of all my trusty kitchen utensils, and christened the event the 'Bubble and Bubbles' night.  The idea being guests could bring a plate of their version of Bubble to enter the 'Bubble Off'  or a bottle of bubbles, but ideally both, although domesticated chimpanzees were not encouraged.  We would then put the various versions of Bubble to the taste test of the assembled neutral party goers, and the world's first 'Bubble Off' winner would be revealed! 

I must say, the pressure was on.  I practiced slight variations on my original recipe over the Christmas period.  I had been given a tip about adding some mature cheddar chunks to the mixture to give it a gooey, yummy texture, and I must admit it worked a treat and so I decided that would be the 'killer' addition to my recipe.

So the night of the 'Bubble Off' arrived, and tension and raw fear could be sniffed in the air, alongside the smell of frying veggies.  I was quietly confident and kept in mind the winner of this year's Great British Bake Off, the relatively inexperienced whippersnapper who beat the veteran, perfectionist cake maker Ken.

There was some pre competition banter, with the Chef trying to put me off my stride by talking about his decades of professional experience and  how he was rubbing his hands with glee with the thought of beating me – but he wasn't going to intimidate me!

We even had our very own version of Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood to do the judging; our other neighbours had decided not to take part themselves so they were recruited as neutral, objective judges for the evening.  The two versions of Bubble could not have looked or tasted more different.  The Chef made one big pattie that we all tucked into, whereas I shaped them in to individual burger shapes.  The Chef used potato and cabbage, and controversially added capers to his mix!  I included potato, sprouts, carrot, parsnip and bound it with an egg – a controversial point it turned out, although I couldn't really see the issue.  I also added bits of cheese of course, which was a little bit of a cheat as it isn't a leftover – but that was canceled out by the illegal addition of capers. 

We also had long discussions and heated debates of what constituted a true Bubble, as opposed to being a Hash, Colcannon, or even the wonderfully titled Rumbledethumps.  The Chef declared my bubble more of a Hash because of the addition of carrots, but I maintain Bubble is any left over veggies from a roast dinner so I stood my ground.

So, eventually the moment of truth had arrived, whose Bubble would be crowned the winner??? 

Well, I think to preserve neighbourly harmony and not to jeopardies long-standing friendships, our 'Mary' and 'Paul' picked a different Bubble each as their favourite, and as we didn't have a third judge, the competition was declared a draw.  Oh well, at least I didn't disgrace myself and I think we might be re-matching next year, and the Prof is now showing interest in entering a Bubble of his own creation, so, who knows, we might have started a new cooking trend here?

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Well, here I am writing this blog post on Boxing day, and this is a first!  It's the first Boxing day where I have not been part of the rabid, obsessive throng of bargain hunters braving the wind, rain, tube strikes and crowds to track down and nab that bargain that I simply couldn't live without – although, of course, I didn't know I couldn't live without it until I saw it hanging there on a rail with an irresistible 50% off sticker!

It feels a bit weird actually, and I confess to experiencing those involuntary, knee jerk pangs of ill-formed desire when I watched those 50% off / clearance / everything must go sale siren adverts luring unsuspecting shoppers to the brink of their financial cliff tops.  But then I thought to myself, what do I really need, or indeed actually want, from the sales?  Except for a nice crisp, white, fitted shirt for work – which I have been after all year but sadly hadn't found one in any of my charity shop expeditions, there is nothing I need.  My desire for some new underwear was sated by my lovely new journalist friend who kindly donated a bundle of fab, new but not new, underwear to me a few months ago so there is nothing else required.

The news this evening carried the headline report of 'bumper', record-breaking sales figures were being made today and that the totality of the British public will have spent nearly £3 billion today alone in the shops and online – three billion!!!  It made me feel a little sick, especially since this year has just seen a deepening of the woes of the financial crisis with still no end in sight.  What on earth are people thinking of? They have just, the day before, indulged in an orgy of eating, drinking and exchanging of - largely unwanted – gifts (apparently nearly 80% of gifts are deemed unwanted or inappropriate a recent survey has discovered) to then, the very next day, go off into the crowds and hassle of a high street or, worse, one of those sterile shopping malls or discount outlets, to spend a ton more money they may not be able to afford.  Apparently police had to be brought in to handle the crowds at the Trafford centre in Manchester – really!  Is a half priced Next jumper that desirable?

The fact I haven't gone into a shop and bought anything new all year has, I feel, really affected me.  I now cannot imagine entering a big clothes shop and aimlessly wandering around, something I used to do often before this year, but now a thought I find quite alarming, for one thing I don't think I'll be able to cope with all that choice!  It will be interesting to see how my shopping habits will change now that I am not banning myself from these shops in the new year – my feeling is I just will not bother, unless I'm after something specific – my god, maybe I'm turning into a bloke!  Perish the thought!

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Well, it's coming up to the end of 'my year of living vintagely', and I cannot quite believe how quickly it has flown by.  It seems only like a few months ago I was writing the first blog post on the topic, now this will be one of the last – for this year at least.

Many people have asked how hard it has been, not shopping in any supermarkets and not buying anything new for a whole year, and, quite honestly I cannot pretend it has been much of a trial or an inconvenience. Not as much as I thought it would be anyway and certainly not as bad as the Prof thought it would be, he was quite keen on just doing it for a month when I first suggested it, and took quite a bit of persuading to commit to a whole year!

The no supermarket shopping has been a revelation. It is liberating not being a slave to the supermarket aisles, mindlessly zig zagging up and down pushing an oversized trolley, being seduced by their latest BOGOF deals on products I would never usually look at, and not being able to resist the 3 for 2s that they shamelessly push at you on the aisle ends, overbuying and then having to chuck things out when they go off in the fridge.

It has been annoying when I haven't been able to find my hitherto household staples: soya and linseed bread (once you've tried this you'll never go back); single cream (bizarrely my most read blog post of the year!), fresh Quorn products and the like outside of supermarkets.  But, on the whole, my local shops, a fortnightly organic box and the odd splurge at upmarket 'farmers markets' have revealed substitutes for certain products and I've discovered new favourites.

The most interesting result of the year is how the household budget has held up through the year.  We calculated that, on average, we spent around £300 per month at the supermarket and on top ups at the local shops. So for this year, at the start of each month, we put £300 in a pot and used that as our cash budget. I didn't really know how long that amount would last, but I had assumed that we would get through it quite quickly and have to supplement it before the month end. But, in reality, nothing could be further from the truth!

Although most products we have bought have been more expensive than if found in a supermarket – cleaning products, cat food, oils, cereals, pasta, cream etc. – it seems that the money we have saved on cheaper fruit and vegetables have offset this extra expense, and then some! Also, we have not 'overbought' at all this year, a much more limited choice selection meant our fridge was never over full and we simply bought what we needed when we needed it, so waste was pretty much eliminated.  By the end of November we had amassed £310 in savings over the year, and added to what we still had 'in the pot' for December, this gave us a whopping £400 and some loose change to go out this weekend and splurge at Borough market, Brixton market and some very nice independent wine and beer establishments.  We now have a feast fit for a vintage Christmas as never before.

So, on average, we can report that we have spent about 10% less this year on food, household items, toiletries and drinks than we did by shopping mainly at supermarkets the year before – amazing really!  And to have what amounted to £400 of 'free Xmas cash' to play with this weekend was an unexpected bonus. Usually we save up our nectar points through the year to spend at Christmas time, but over recent years they have got so mean that it typically amounts to just £25-30 in return for a spend over the preceding 12 months of over £3000, a payback of just 1%.  This year we couldn't spend it all even though we tried very hard – so the remainder goes back in the Christmas pot for next year.

So, it just leaves me to wish all readers of this blog a merry, vintage christmas and a very happy 2013 – I'm about to tuck into some vintage cheddar and a nice sherry

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